Update: The bike is sold. It’s going to live in Grand Junction, CO with it’s road bike sibling. I was promised a family shot of the two. Thanks Brent!

I have a steel 29er up for grabs. This was my personal bike at the beginning of the summer. The bike has low miles and some of the parts have so little use they could pass as new. Add to that, some parts are new. I built this frame in May and rode it unpainted with a collection of parts I had around the shop. In June I ordered the XT parts and the handlebar/stem. This is when I also built the seatpost and ordered the 2014 Fox fork. I received the Fox fork on June 16th and I sent the frame to paint on July 10th. That means there is a little over three weeks of riding on the fork. The frame has been at paint so it hasn’t been used for the last 6 weeks.

Here is a list of things on the bike that are new:

Shimano XT crank, bb, chainrings, and RaceFace bashguard

Shimano XT front derailleur

Sram 1050 chain

Candy blue paint with two color painted logos

Cast yellow bronze headbadge

Maxxis Ikon tires 2.35 front, 2.2 rear (currently setup tubeless)

The common question with a used custom bike, “will it fit”. Well here is how it’s shown in the pictures with the seat at my saddle height and a 100mm stem. As you can see, the seat could move up or down 30mm+ and the stem could be shortened a lot and still have the bike ride correctly

Unsagged Geo (525mm is what this fox fork actually measures axle to crown)

with 27mm of sag

In more important news, today is the due date of our first child (a girl). No signs that we will be rushing to the hospital yet, but it couldn’t be far off. Jinny and I are very excited about this, and while I’ll be experiencing some big life changes, I will try and have the business transition smoothly. My lead time will most like be adjusted a bit, but that’s all I can foresee as of now. In an effort to keep more money at home and the reality that I probably don’t need two mountain bikes right now has lead me to sell this bike. Trust me, it was hard not to want to keep it while I was building it up. I just love that color!

Back to the bike, this is my ideal hardtail trail 29er. I know it seems obvious that this is exactly how I would design and spec a bike for myself, but I end up building these for a lot of people too. The reason why is that they are great climbers with the short chainstays and reasonable weight, they descend well with the aggressive geometry and a 120mm fork, and they don’t require a lot of maintenance due to a lack of moving parts on the frame.

I don’t have the best scale for complete bikes, but I’m coming up with 24.8 pound without pedals.

I also think that this part spec is about as much bang for the buck as you can get. Shimano XT is essentially a heavier XTR at this point. The finish is more utilitarian and the parts don’t have as much machining, but function wise it’s close. I chose a 2×10 setup with chainrings selected for dirt. That means you may have a brief moment of being spun out on pavement with a tailwind, but you will be able to use every gear on the dirt. You will also ride more in the middle of the cassette. In my experience, 84 gear inches (32 x 11) is more than enough for alpine singletrack. The Fox fork has the revised 2014 CTD tune, which fixes a lot of the problems people had with the 2013’s. It’s buttery smooth thanks to the Kashima and stiff thanks to the tapered steer and 15mm axle. Bonus points because it’s black and looks good dirty. I also swaped out the brakes from my normal XT kit and used Hope Race X2’s. As much as I love the Shimano’s raw power, I feel like the Hope has the same amount of power, but makes better use of it. They aren’t as grabby off the top and are much easier to modulate. The Race X2’s are also lighter than XTR brakes, have titanium hardware, are easy to bleed, and have unbelievable finish and machining through out. I’ve paired them with Centerlock XTR icetech rotors to kept them cool, even under heavy braking. The wheels are comprised of Shimano XTR hubs, wheelsmith double butted spokes and alloy nipples (blue and silver alternating), and Pacenti TL28 rims. Shimano has really knocked the weight out of these durable hubs. These Pacenti rims weighed 445 and 450 grams. The 23mm internal width make tires happy. I found the stiffness when lacing these to be in between a Stan’s Arch EX and the out going Flow (closer to the flow in stiffness). The wheels are laced 32 hole/3 cross to proper tension and have stan’s yellow tape and valves installed. Next up is one of my titanium seatposts. I know a lot of people feel that a dropper seatpost should be standard on a bike like this. In some ways I agree, but there are tradeoffs. The ride compliance and on trail feel of the titanium seatpost is not to be missed. I was blown away at what I could pedal though while seated the first time I road one and I still am to this day. The reduced maintanence, 330 grams of weight savings, and cleaner look all keep the dropper off of my bike. As a disclaimer, I do ride a dropper post on my full suspension bike. The ride stiffness, extra moving parts, and weight are not as big of trade offs for me on that bike. I’m all about dropping the seat as I do it for every downhill, but I don’t have to be able to do it on the fly. With the hardtail I don’t mind using the quick release. The Hope quick release works flawlessly, doesn’t require obsceen amounts of closing pressure to keep the post from slipping, and functions the same whether clean or dirty thanks to the brass bushing. With all that said, I have a new KS Lev at the shop I can throw on. It will add $140 to the price. Lastly, a carbon Chromag 730mm handlebar and 3t team stem with titanium hardware complete the build. If you need pedals let me know.

The color, oh that color. First of all, I love it. This is the first time I’ve used it on one of my bikes. It’s a candy blue that’s a multi stage powdercoat with a tinted liquid clearcoat. What does that mean? It means the paint is like glass because of the liquid clear and it’s deep because it’s multiple layers. The bronze and white logos play off the Fox fork and really pop off the blue. I also love the Digital logo option for the mountain bikes. All of the logos are painted on with just a touch of branding throughout as to not be too billboardish. A yellow bronze headbadge tops it off. It’s a hard color to photograph for me. The color changes and doesn’t look as dark as it is in real life. I’ve included some pictures of it inside the shop and one next to a Chris King navy hub. As you can see, it’s almost a direct match to the anodized blue. Good thing I have King hubs just laying around the shop at all times.

So let’s talk about the frame. It’s pretty dang light for a steel bike, and it’s even lighter for a steel bike with this diameter of tubing. The frame weighs 2058 grams (4.5 pounds) with the derailleur hanger and water bottle boss bolts. It’s large diameter tubing, but uses a thin wall to keep the ride from being overbearingly stiff and dead. It’s a very lively ride, but it’s on the higher end of torsional stiffness. What that means on the trail is you can’t twist the front triangle around with today’s wider handlebars and the bottom bracket doesn’t deflect when you mash the pedals. It has that unique steel zing and pop, but it’s more modern than retro. The seatstays are kept small to tame the ride for those long days.

I’m offering a 3 year warranty due to the nature of this thin walled tubeset. Also the fact that the new owner is not me therefore probably doesn’t have the exact same idea of what a bike should be. While this may be blunt, I’m selling this bike at far too great of a discount to offer a lifetime warranty. It’s not that the bike is fragile, but it isn’t made to be ridden in a bike park. It’s not an all-mountain hardtail (whatever that means) like the Transition Trans Am, Banshee Paradox, Kona Honzo or Canfield Yelly Screamy. Those bikes have at least another pound and a half of steel in the frame. It’s designed to be ridden on singletrack with a lot of climbing and a lot of fast descending. Think Rocky Mountian esque trials or better yet, pick it up and we’ll go for a ride. I’ll be honest, I don’t baby my bikes and I’m not a small guy (6 feet tall, 200 pounds), I ride downhill fast and I wouldn’t ride any other steel tubeset out there. This is not my first hardtail using these tubes and it provides such a unique ride that I think it’s worth the tradeoffs of denting it or it not being a family heirloom in 20 years. My personal goal is to get a realistic amount of use out of a frame and have the best riding frame possible in that time. As they say, tools not jewels.

I’m offering this complete bike for (SOLD Thanks). Full price on this bike is $5,125. It’s priced to move and you won’t find a better deal out there. I scanned the internet this morning for some of the higher end production steel bikes. I couldn’t locate a frame with half the amount of love put into it or this high end of a parts spec for the money. I can ship the bike anywhere in the world. I’ll warn international buyers that shipping on a box this size and insured for the full amount is scary expensive. It would also be great if you would like to pay a visit and pick the bike up.